EU must toughen up CO2 targets for vans says climate group

The European Union must toughen its relatively weak emissions targets for commercial vans to help give the shift to electric models a push, so fossil-fuel-powered sales can be phased out by 2035, campaign group Transport & Environment (T&E) has said.

T&E says it analysed 2020 van sales and saw no change in CO2 emissions from 2017. It found the targets for vans imposed by the EU were so weak that manufacturers could meet them without selling any zero-emissions vans at all.

"Standards which entered into force at the beginning of 2020 were supposed to make vans cleaner, but vanmakers have had to do almost nothing to reach them," said T&E freight manager James Nix in a statement.

"With pathetic CO2 targets, the boom in e-commerce is becoming a nightmare for our planet," he added.

Read more: European electric & hybrids market "almost equal with China", figures show

Last year, sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid passenger cars nearly trebled, pushing over the 1 million mark - over 10% of total sales - due to the stringent emissions targets as well as government subsidies.

Sales of electric vans however have been sluggish, languishing at around 2% of total market share.

T&E said the EU must bring forward its present target for CO2 reduction of 31% to 2027 from 2030 and push for a much more ambitious target of a minimum of 60% reduction by 2030.

The group said the EU should set a 100% CO2 reduction target by 2035, effectively banning combustion engine vans.

T&E also said that the bloc should stop vanmakers from producing plug-in hybrid vans (PHEVs). The group along with several other similar groups are arguing for PHEV passenger cars to be phased out over the next few years, saying that owners tend to not charge them properly and rely more heavily on the fossil-fuel combustion engine.

The European Commission is set to propose a revision to the EU’s van CO2 emission standards in June.

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